The Rathskeller — Restaurant in Indianapolis

This review particularly covers using the Rathskeller as a wedding venue. I cannot recommend using this establishment for your wedding venue. I will try and summarize everything in bullet-point fashion:

The ceremony hall is on the main floor. Also on the main floor, is a coffee shop, so you have patrons mixing in frequently while you are trying to coordinate everything. We had to ask patrons to leave the ceremony hall several times as there was never an employee stationed to keep it from happening. We also used the grand staircase for photos, which is right in the middle of the seating area for the coffee shop. We all felt like a circus show while everyone just sat and stared at us. People were mostly respectful about staying out of the way, but it certainly took away from the atmosphere and added an unneeded level of stress to the wedding party.

During photos, we made our way up to the second floor from the grand staircase to take family photos in hopes to remove ourselves from the bustle of the coffee shop. We immediately got greeted by a very rude and unprofessional female that worked on that floor. She came out yelling loudly about how we needed to leave and that the floor was for private events only. There were no indications of the floor being off limits and there wasn't a soul on the 2nd floor to bother. One would also assume that after spending the money to utilize the Rathskeller for a private event, there might have been some give and take. We didn't give much grief as we all were already stressed out enough and moved on.

Prior to anyone from the wedding party showing up, we were promised to get a room at 1pm that everyone could store their stuff in. That time came, but we were never directed to any specific room. I am not sure of the time, but after a phone call was made, we were finally told of a room on the other side of the building that we could utilize.

Ceremony - The ceremony turned out nicely. The hall provided plenty of space to accommodate all the guests and decorations. However, patrons were still allowed to access that part of the hallway to come and go as they pleased. Still no sign of an employee to manage this.

Once the ceremony was complete, it was time for all the guests to move downstairs to the restaurant area. This created some confusion as there is no direct route to go from the upstairs to the downstairs other than an elevator. However, if you go back outside via the front doors, then turn right, you can go into the front door of the restaurant. Due to the long line starting to build at the elevator in the already packed narrow hallway by the coffee shop, I released myself from wedding party duties and started showing people how to go outside and come back in. Still no sign of any employees to help the guests.

Reception - This started to get much better from here once the event moved downstairs. The reception hall was very spacious and complimented our many decorations nicely. Finally, there were ample staff that were able to cater to the guests and their needs. The food was excellent and the staff was very professional and prompt. The bar staff did well managing the line and served drinks in a timely fashion. However, there is only one women's bathroom downstairs, and it was in our reception hall. This meant that all the loud, intoxicated females from the adjoining bar had to come into the reception hall during our event. Many of the wedding guests were complaining of the line to use the bathroom due to the unrelated female patrons constantly coming through. There were several other patrons coming in as well that had no business being there other than to try and get a free drink from the bar or food from the buffet. Towards the end of the night, an employee finally stationed himself at the front door to regulate any patrons from coming in that did not belong.

Conclusion: I was a professional wedding DJ for over 10 years. Just basing on my experience with the Rathskeller and knowledge, I would not recommend using it as a...

I really hate to leave a negative review at a beloved establishment, but our experience there was just -woof-. It took at least 20 minutes before anyone even came to our table to get us water, and every interaction after that took that long, if not longer. Our waitress rarely came to our table (20-30m periods would go by without seeing her). She would appear with a round of drinks or an appetizer, but wouldn't clear plates or bring refills or ask if we needed anything. She'd just drop something off and leave. We ran out of water very early on and had to go find a half-filled pitcher of water and serve ourselves. 2 hours in, she told us sorry, but the kitchen was "hella busy" as was the upstairs. We were patient but at a certain point, after tables who had been seated long after us were getting served their food and leaving before we'd even been told the food was "slow, but coming soon," it just started to become absurd. There was a pile of dirty dishes that sat at the end of our table for over an hour (she didn't collect any when she'd make a rare stop at our table). We considered just canceling the rest of our order, paying, and leaving. It was 90s night, which we'd planned to go to, but we were so delayed and the line was so long that we decided to just call it a night.

I will say, the food, when it finally arrived, was mostly very good other than the mashed potatoes being cold and bland. And I do not blame our waitress for the entire situation. We think it was a combination of a backed up kitchen, poor management, and poor serving. I would have expected management to come out and apologize, do -something- to make it right, but there was nothing from them. And our waitress didn't do herself any favors by not getting us more drinks while we waited. Her tip would have naturally been higher and we wouldn't have been sitting there hungry and thirsty and sober, remembering the whole experience with perfect clarity. She "apologized" for the inconvenience by way of blaming it on the specific food we ordered and the kitchen, but showed no awareness or regret that her service had been below the bare minimum. We agreed that the system she has to work in is clearly broken, but there still isn't any excuse for the poor service and communication. How do you come to your table and not see that all of our waters are empty and that you haven't been there in 30 minutes, and still leave without saying you'll be back with more water? How do you see that all of the beers are gone and not ask if we want refills? How do you not ask if you can get us anything since our food is taking so long?

Unfortunately, the experience was bad enough that I won't be eager to come back, and if someone suggested we go there, I'd be inclined to sway them into going somewhere else. This was the first and only experience I can refer to. I hope this was a one-off experience, and we just went on a bad night or sat at a bad area (in the basement, wedding venu area). Hopefully others have a much better experience than we...

It's not every day I go to a restaurant and leave a review. It's even less likely that I leave a review that's overwhelming positive in every single aspect of my visit. Not only is the decor of the restaurant really cool to look at there's also a history here. As far as food goes I got the Jaegerschnitzel. It comes with the soup of the day as well as bread service. The soup was a creamy tomato and I'll be daamed if I don't try to find the recipe somewhere it was that good. The "bread" service was a big soft pretzel and a spicy mustard. The mustard was really spicy but really good so use sparingly. The mushroom sauce on top of the Schnitzel was to die for. Not only that but the Schnitzel itself was very flavorful and light. The "accompaniments" that I got were the German Potato Salad and the Spaetzle Noodles. The potato salad was a sweet flavor and very delicious. It was an unexpected flavor but very welcomed. The Noodles were very interesting. From what I could taste they reminded me of really good dumplings. I did indulge in a beer when I went. It was the "Warsteiner Isenbeck" a Stout beer. It was really easy to drink and had a great flavor as well. I'd highly recommend. I went for two deserts for me and my partner to share. The first was the Apple Strudel Alamode. It needs every piece of this plate to make itself work but it's very light and very good. The other was the Rathskeller Bread Pudding. I have few words other than perfection. This last light and not overly sweet. I loved every bite.

The last and most important part of this entire experience was our server. Michael who was are bartender/server was an experience. One of the best servers I've ever had it's not hard to see why he's been here for 20 years. I was happy talking with him and he made our experience all that more special.

Will I be back? Absolutely they have a outside patio with live music so got to come back for that. They have amazing food so I need to try more. And the staff just watching them makes me feel like there comrades in arms rather than coworkers. My only regret I ate the soup and entree so fast I forgot to...